you had birds in your mouth and sunlight dripping from your eyelashes.
i promised i wouldn't speak if you wouldn't change faces twice an hour.
we made conversation under a tree and sleep-walked through your kitchen.
i couldn't stare for your poetry disguised as fingers, always moved your hands.

i opened your window and slid to the street, took a walk with the recycling.
my hands looked tired the next morning, and you wouldn't take no.
when the lights fell asleep, we ran for the boats and slipped into the water.
the moon smiled and pulled us apart, i never matched your shoes again.

a finger in my mouth:
rough sound from above,
from somewhere in the dark.

my skin wrinkles,
sags around these heavy joints.
i am so much noise.

evening dawns
my hands wander,
unsure of their purpose.

his vulnerability is a bed i never once slept in

She shuffled into the dull green room
Perched on the edge of the chair
Dressed black on black
Lace mantilla over a dark scarf
Black dress so worn that
the white threads were showing through

Face the color of the adobe
In the shadows
She did not walk in the sun

She clutched a rosary in her hand
It trembled as if from prayer with no sound
She called me mister
Never raised her gaze
Still focused on the rosary
I didn't want to
but I had to ask,
"What brings you here?
You seem so sad---"

Like a striking snake
She looked me in the eyes
Pupils hard black shiny
Thin tracks of tears run down wrinkled cheeks
"Mister, they said I must tell you everything
I must confess it all so you can help me"

Mumbling appropriate therapy stuff
I began to listen

"Miquello--quello--ah ah"
She spoke very fast
A story repeated many times
Still filled with pain and longing
"He was so beautiful, my boy
Only he would talk to me
Every day, he would tell me his stories
His time at school, what he learned
My hijo, he was so smart
He would hug me, kiss me
I can still feel his arms
Oh Madre de Dios!"

She bought him a new bike for his paper route
Every day she would walk out to see him come home
To see his face, to feel his happiness to see her

He was coming home just at sunset
She called out, "Miquello"
She saw him smile and wave
Pedalling home to her, excited
He never saw the truck that ran the light
Crushing his body and the new bike

She stood there as the sun set
Watching the ambulance, the police
The little crowd gathered
The officer came to the house
And saw her frozen there
Senora, Senora!!

She keeps his room as a shrine
Everything clean, candles burning
His picture on the dresser
His mangled bike next to the bed
She will not let anybody touch a thing

After the funeral mass
She went to the confessional
The priest told her God forgives
She said that she could not

Black eyes burning
She told me, "If I hadn't called out
If he hadn't seen me, he would be alive,
With children!"  Her thin chest shudders
"Besides, I loved him too much, Mister
God took him from me as punishment
I loved him wrong--malo, malo"

Black lace shuddering in silent sobs
"To **** myself is a greater sin
I'll wait to die--then I'll see him again"

In the quiet room all my empty words
Fall like dust in the emptiness
Silence stretching out to more silence
Her guilt to be resolved only by
Her own slow death.

i want to run every grain of sand in your soul through my fingers
not to call you my own,
just to
feel
because i am certain nothing could be as cosmically beautiful.

i want to take every piece of everything tangible you have ever put your energy into,
and meditate under it
slip my ears below the hot water of your composition.

i want to drown in the infinite fountain of catalyst beauty you spout

i want to dance in your orbit and wake up wearing things that smell like you

desires abounding, love:

let's be in the moment
to be in the moment with you is to be in the stars.

what is your fantasy/?
a canyon, i say

****, he says
i think we might be meant to be
and i'm not saying that just because i am
drunk.

my pleasure pierces the cold, snowy streets through open window
as the deepest parts of ourselves mingle
i give him the ******* of the century
because we are practical and know that a baby born into this world
is a sad baby.

his
******
in my palm
is one of those moments you recall later on as

defining

as pure

as achingly beautiful.

burrowed into this summer solstice body that fits
he says,

i'm not letting you go anywhere.

In these dark days the bleak December sun,
rises tired, the more to lie down drear.
By rain, or snow, or chill we are undone
and plod towards the ending of the year.
We hope in the returning of the light;
that soon again there'll be another spring.
Another year is coming into sight;
with dreams and plans and fears that it may bring.
I wish, in every way my joys to share.
I hope for comfort in the times of pain.
In fear, let consolation be found here;
and let love live in all the world again.
To ponder all this, I am yearly cursed;
whenever it's December 31st.

He sighs
My life
Is scattered on the floor
My heart
Makes art
As a mosaic forms
The glue
Seeps through
It paints the picture red
Time’s waste
The taste
Is bitter with regret